With the recovery rate rising to 82.14 per cent, the ministry said India has maintained its top global ranking in total recoveries with such high successive single-day numbers.
In a virtual interaction with state chief ministers over the pandemic situation and the ongoing vaccination drive, Modi said in states like Maharashtra, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh the number of COVID cases has seen a rise while nearly 70 districts in the country have seen an increase in the positivity rate by over 150 per cent of late.
This week, global drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech said their COVID-19 vaccine candidate is 95 per cent effective, including in adults over 65 years of age.
'Das is friendly, but he finally does what he does. The quality of engagement is very good.'
The ICMR said people having symptoms like fever, cough, sore throat and runny nose and residing in hotspots or cluster areas and in evacuee centres will now be tested for coronavirus infection.
Any judgement on whether the March numbers reflect sustainable growth in GST collection should ideally await the numbers that will be out in May, points out A K Bhattacharya.
Focus on nutrition, tailor-made training for specific opponents key to Prannoy's success.
The spike in the country's financial capital has got pronounced since December 20, when just 283 cases were reported. Tuesday had witnessed 1,377 cases in the metropolis, and Wednesday's figure was a jump by over 80 per cent, he pointed out.
The Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which works with one dose instead of two, got approval on Saturday, the third vaccine cleared in the country after emergency use authorisation (EUA) was given to two-dose shots from Pfizer and Moderna in December last year.
'In our ICUs, the majority are unvaccinated people.' 'Out of the hospital, in the community, we see that -- whether you are vaccinated or whether you're not vaccinated -- the symptoms are more or less the same.'
The ministry said the mutated UK strain was detected in eight samples at the National Centre for Disease Control, one at the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani (near Kolkata), one at the National Institute of Virology Pune, seven at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences Hospital Bengaluru, two at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad and one at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi.
The Union health ministry, however, suggested necessary curbs in areas reporting over 10 per cent positivity rate or 40 per cent occupancy in either oxygen-supported or ICU beds.
Though Covid cases are rising in Delhi and its satellite towns, the focus should be on hospital admissions that have remained the same or changed just marginally, say several scientists, underscoring that the uptick is not an indication of a fourth wave in the country at this point.
As daily testing of samples of blood and throat and nose swabs crossed two lakh for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, over 14,000 new coronavirus cases were registered in the country for the fifth day in a row to take the total count to 4,56,183, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
Deaths are significantly less in the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to the second wave, and the current surge is not witnessing increase in severe illness or death following high vaccination uptake, the government said on Thursday.
Providing data, it said UK's Public Health England has reported high vaccine effectiveness (87.9 per cent) against the B.1.617.2 variant, most reported in India, in an observational study (concluded on May 22, 2021).
Bajaj Finance was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, surging around 9 per cent, followed by IndusInd Bank, L&T, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC, SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, ONGC and Axis Bank. On the other hand, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, Infosys, Nestle India, Sun Pharma and TCS closed in the red.
The Covid-19 vaccine demonstrated an overall 90.4 per cent efficacy in phase 3 clinical trials, reports Sohini Das
"I pray to them with folded hands that COVID cases will only increase due to this (behaviour). It is wrong when you reach for ICU beds at the last moment," Karnataka Revenue Minister R Ashoka said.
The new order will impact cities like Nagpur, Thane and Pune as they had seen more relaxations than Mumbai, which continued to be under 'level 3' restrictions, despite qualifying for 'level 1' where all curbs are allowed to be lifted.
These upcoming oxygen plants include those being built with the contribution from the PM CARES fund as well as from various ministries and PSUs, it said.
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation said while the rights, safety, and well-being of trial subjects were of paramount importance, protocol amendment, deviation or modification might be necessary in some cases owing to unavoidable circumstances.
China on Monday defended its visa curbs which have prevented thousands of stranded Indians from returning to Beijing, saying they are "appropriate" to control the spread of COVID-19 and do not target India alone, but are applied to even Chinese citizens coming back from overseas.
Pakistan play a three-match Test series against England starting on August 5, followed by three T20 International matches.
Both Jet Airways and Go First have met with a similar fate of landing up in insolvency, albeit for different reasons. Whether Go First will be able to avoid the sharp erosion in value like in the case of Jet, experts say, will depend on how quickly it is able to restart operations and retain its slots at airports. Go First, owned by the Wadia group, filed for voluntary corporate insolvency resolution on May 2 due to inadequate capacity utilisation that led to a cash crunch.
The data gaps are inhibiting sound decisions. We need to know seroprevalence, infection, and vaccination rates. This is required in 200 cities of India, every week, suggests Ajay Shah.
Japan's Naomi Osaka said on Sunday that while she has spent her entire life waiting to compete at the Olympics, the risks of holding the Tokyo Games amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic should continue to be carefully discussed.
With more than 21 lakh migrant workers returning to the state as per official data, the Nitish Kumar government faces an enormous challenge in providing jobs for them.
The official also said the government's official app helped generate information about 697 potential hotspots in the country.
The recoveries have surged to 20,37,870 in the country, while there are 6,76,514 active cases of COVID-19, according to the data updated at 8 am. The record high recoveries have ensured that active cases of coronavirus infection, the 'actual caseload' of the country, currently comprises less than 1/4th (only 24.45 per cent) of the total cases.
'If we have to restrict and fight terrorism, first and foremost, we have to ensure communal harmony in the country.'
The minister said this underlying resentment and pain of those countries regarding the global economy was building up for the last 15-20 years and the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine conflict resulted in prices of energy and food items going up.
The 'terrible' surge of the coronavirus cases in India has severely impacted COVAX's vaccine supply in the second quarter of this year to the extent that there will be a shortfall of 190 million doses by the end of June, according to a joint statement by the WHO, UNICEF, GAVI and CEPI.
We need to give a booster shot to all our frontline workers first as if they fall victim to Omicron, the health system will collapse, points out Ramesh Menon.
Indian athletics chief coach Radhakrishnan Nair said the athletes were prepared for the Hangzhou Asian Games but the postponement should lesson their workload this season.
The average rate of COVID-19 vaccination in the country has been 10.8 million per week. At that rate, it will take India till December 2024 to complete two billion doses.
Across the country, the number of patients in ICU beds is 4,88,861 while 1,70,841 patients were on ventilators and 9,02,291 patients were on oxygen support.
'Because of a little out of sight, out of mind, I did end up losing out on good projects.'
The report came at the time when British-based health data firm Airfinity, said that the infections in China are likely to be more than one million a day with deaths at more than 5,000 a day.
